Oh Quebec, so distinct it hurts. The people of Quebec have always felt a need to stand out from the rest of Canada, whether through dipping fries in gravy to celebrate the cultural tradition of obesity, or through rioting over just about anything. But for too long, les Québécois have had to contend with affront after affront by Canada and Britain (little and big Satan, if you will).
Most egregious of these affronts is the forced use of .ca domain names. Worse, the bastardization of the Quebec government website, found at http://gouv.qc.ca/. Behold the terror. Thankfully, in the interest of being the specialest-est of all the provinces, the Ministère de l’Économie, de l’Innovation et des Exportations has created http://registre.quebec/, where you too can reserve your .quebec domain name!
The biggest thing to happen on the internet since Têtes à claques.
registre.quebec
Now your first thought might be “Hey Jeremy, why not just do .qc? My website idea www.poutine.qc looks better than www.poutine.quebec, which just seems like a mouthful.” To which I would respond by thanking the hypothetical me for leading me to the next point in this article: ending with .qc is too damned ambiguous! .qc? Does that stand for “Quite Canadian” or “Quiet Captives”? .quebec is so much more precise. It allows people to know that the website they will soon be browsing will likely only be available in one language (joual).
So, before all the good ones are taken, starting September 2nd, you can go register maroisland.quebec or whatever it is you need to assure yourself that your website is adequately distinct. I’ll personally enjoy having all my emails from jmcfadden@viagralibre.quebec instantly delivered to the junk mail folder because that really just looks like something spam bots would think up.
In the mean time, if you’d like to register a business in Quebec, you can check out http://registre.quebec/ for instructions on how to ensure that you will only ever conduct business in this province.